Evidence of meeting #10 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was indian.
A recording is available from Parliament.
7 p.m.
Chair, Ryerson University's Centre for the Study of Indigenous Governance, As an Individual
Yes, it would be either because of service or because we're going to put all these cases on hold, because we have a joint process. That could go on for, what, twenty years?
7 p.m.
Chair, Ryerson University's Centre for the Study of Indigenous Governance, As an Individual
Yes, so maybe we should delay hearing these cases because of this joint process.
7 p.m.
Chair, Ryerson University's Centre for the Study of Indigenous Governance, As an Individual
It doesn't sit well with me.
7 p.m.
NDP
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
No.
I want to ask about funding, Chief Maracle. I think others touched on it as well. I think it's very troubling that we have no estimate of funding. There's certainly nothing in the budget that earmarks funding if Bill C-3 should be implemented. We've had other pieces of legislation that have been implemented without the funding attached. The B.C. First Nations Education Act is a really good example. The first nations in B.C. are still trying to get funding for a piece of legislation that was passed, I don't know, three years ago now. So it's very troubling that there isn't a recognition of the impact, not only on chiefs and councils and on people who want to be reinstated, but on a number of other issues, such as education, awareness, and all those other things.
Do you want to add anything to that?
7:05 p.m.
Chief of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians
Currently there is no mechanism in the funding formulas to address growth. For example, I mentioned that if we have to go to urban-style development, we'll need basic infrastructure, water, sewer, street lighting, roads to build subdivisions, if we are to try to get more people living on the same piece of land. The department does not have the financial capacity to address the infrastructure needs that first nations communities have.
Six Nations is the largest community in Canada. It was only last year that it got funding for its water treatment plant. We've been trying to get a water treatment plant for our community for 20 years. So the very basic infrastructure requirements are not there to handle the increased population of people who want to live on the reserve.
The other compounding factor is that Bill S-4, which is currently in the Senate, is going to entitle more people to live on the reserve as a matter of law. There is no provision or arrangement between Canada and the provinces over who will pay for services for non-Indians who will be living on the reserve, nor will the federal or provincial government engage in that discussion to sort that question out.
Nowhere else in Canada would there be any kind of confusion about who is responsible to provide very basic services that the Canadian public take for granted; it's only with what occurs on the reserve. The neglect on the part of the governments, both federally and provincially, to address those issues is a form of discrimination because it demonstrates that the needs of first nations people and non-Indians who live on the reserve are not important matters to be resolved by the crown, whether it's federally or provincially. That is a form of discrimination that's unacceptable.
7:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
We're out of time now, unfortunately.
Thank you, Ms. Crowder.
I will go now to Mr. Duncan.
Do you have a point of order, Monsieur Lemay?
7:05 p.m.
Bloc
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
It's just a straightforward question. Did Ms. Palmater have a brief?
7:05 p.m.
Bloc
7:05 p.m.
Conservative
John Duncan Conservative Vancouver Island North, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just as a little background, I've been on and off this committee, but more on than off, since 1994. I recognize that the world has changed a lot in that timeframe. When I first started on this committee, Bill C-31 wasn't such an old bill. It's now something we look at historically, but it was still very fresh in everyone's mind at that time. I can say with some authority that things are much more complicated when we respond to or do anything relating to conflict or litigation and things flowing from litigation.
I can think of such things as that we have now established legally and very clearly a duty to consult, responsibilities, and obligations.
Another new wrinkle, of course, is something we've been talking about, which is the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. They were not a player and now they are a player. As a matter of fact, they are monitoring these meetings and will be appearing before this committee next week.
I don't think we can make any connection between what a government department might be arguing before them and what their mandate is. Their mandate is something for them to decide, very clearly.
Given the complexity of duty to consult, given the timeframe that we were dealing with in the McIvor case, yes, it's a narrow response; we haven't said otherwise. This is a narrow response: we've set up an exploratory process, without terms of reference or context until such time as the national aboriginal organizations, friendship centres, and so on have an opportunity to engage in doing exactly that. So it's not as though we've....
Pamela Palmater, you were saying that it could go on for 20 years. Well, I'm sure they don't want it to go on for 20 years, so there will be context in terms of reference set by all of the participants to ensure that we don't have that kind of process.
Rather than a consultation, I'm suggesting—and asking the question--is this not better than a consultation, from the standpoint that all of the parties understand they are part and parcel of setting the terms of reference, the context, and timelines, and so on, whereas “duty to consult”, in my mind anyway, can be more one-sided, I guess, for lack of a better terminology?
That's my advocacy, my comments, and my question at the same time. Any of you are invited to respond.
7:10 p.m.
Chair, Ryerson University's Centre for the Study of Indigenous Governance, As an Individual
Those are really important comments, because they tend to inform the process that's going on here at the committee. You're asking me whether Canada's response with Bill C-3 and an undefined joint process is a reasonable response to McIvor. I would say no. It's not a reasonable legal response; it's not a reasonable relationship and reconciliation response.
I take your point about people not wanting it to be 20 years. Of course, we don't want the joint process to be 20 years. But section 67 of the Canadian Human Rights Act was also meant to be extremely temporary in nature while we engaged in a “joint process” to review the discrimination in the Indian Act and deal with it; 25 years later it was repealed.
I'm not one for making predictions; I go on past practices, because that's all we have to go by. So that's my concern. There's nothing about the joint process in Bill C-3, there's nothing about what we're going to be doing in Bill C-3, and there's nothing about funding in Bill C-3. Those are just political potentials. If you couple those political potentials with past practice, I have significant concerns, if we don't make some real changes in Bill C-3.
7:10 p.m.
Conservative
John Duncan Conservative Vancouver Island North, BC
Just in quick response, section 67 of the Canadian Human Rights Act was a government initiative that was very much opposed by the opposition in a minority government and very much opposed by much of the first nations and aboriginal community.
7:10 p.m.
Liberal
Todd Russell Liberal Labrador, NL
If it was vigorously opposed by all the opposition parties, it would never have passed, seeing that there was a minority government. So it took the support of opposition parties for section 67 to be repealed and for it to go forward. The record should be corrected.
7:10 p.m.
Conservative
7:10 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
7:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
No, Mr. Duncan has the floor. What he says is up to him. We allow freedom of speech here.
7:10 p.m.
Conservative
John Duncan Conservative Vancouver Island North, BC
Mr. Maracle and Ms. Venne may want to respond to my first question.
7:10 p.m.
Chief of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians
I speak as a community chief, and I don't purport to know all there is to know about Bill C-3. What I do know is that there is not enough funding currently to deal with the population we have now, and that there are very basic services for which we have to turn people away and say no--for education, for housing. Having more members without any commitment is going to worsen the situation for first nations people.
The other thing is, I think Bill C-3 is only a partial response to the discrimination that first nations women suffer. If Canada is truly committed to its Constitution in eliminating all forms of discrimination against people on the basis of gender, then it needs to continue with the work, correcting the legislation to achieve the ultimate goal that there wouldn't be discrimination against first nations women.
It still will continue. There will no doubt be other court cases and complaints to the United Nations about discrimination. I don't really believe that the people who sit in the House of Commons have a clear understanding of the nature of the discrimination to be in a position to put forth good legislation at this time.
7:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
Did anybody else have a short comment?
Ms. Venne, were you okay with that? Okay.
We'll hear Ms. Palmater again, but be very short.